Video: Cargo Plane In Sea After Skidding Off Hong Kong Runway, Killing 2

In what seemed straight out of a Final Destination movie, a cargo plane hit a security vehicle on the ground while trying to land at the Hong Kong airport and veered off the runway into the sea, killing two people. 

Video footage of the accident showed the plane's visibly cracked fuselage partly submerged in the sea that borders the airport, with its green tail section torn off and the emergency evacuation slides extended. 

The footage also showed police patrol boats moving around the wreckage as authorities used cranes and tow trucks to search for the aircraft's "black box", which contains recording devices that may shed light on how the incident occurred.

The Boeing 747 cargo aircraft, which had flown into the Hong Kong International Airport from Dubai at around 4 am on Monday, skidded off the runway and crashed through a fence, airport officials said. 

Officials said the patrol car was not on the runway at the time of the accident. It was the aircraft that collided with the security vehicle, which was outside the fence, and pushed it into the water. 

"The cargo plane went off from the north runway upon landing and crashed through the fence and into the sea," news agency AFP quoted Steven Yiu, executive director of airport operations at Airport Authority Hong Kong, as saying. 

Officials added that the rescuers retrieved two men from the car submerged around five metres (16 feet) from the shore. However, a 30-year-old man was confirmed dead at the scene while the other, aged 41, died after he was taken to hospital.   

The accident at the world's busiest cargo airport involved a plane operated by Turkish carrier ACT Airlines, which was temporarily leased by Emirates.  

Emirates airlines said there was no cargo onboard and the crew were confirmed to be safe.

Officials have announced an investigation into the crash, one of the most serious incidents since the airport began operations in 1998. 

This incident happened at the airport's northernmost and newest runway, part of a $18 billion expansion project that was completed last year.

Officials provided a diagram that showed the plane abruptly turning left halfway down the length of the runway. The aircraft did not send an emergency signal and gave no reply when radioed by the airport, they said.

Hong Kong's airport handled 4.9 million tonnes of cargo in 2024 and was ranked the world's busiest cargo airport by Airports Council International (ACI) World in April.

The airport's north runway was temporarily closed on Monday, while the other two runways remained operational.

(With inputs from AFP)